Violence against women, Espírito Santo, Brazil

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: To estimate the prevalence and factors associated with psychological, physicaland sexual violence in women victims of intimate partner violence assisted in the primarycare services.METHODS: This is a cross-sectional study, conducted in 26 health units in Vitória,State of Espírito Santo, from March to September 2014. We interviewed 991 women aged20-59 years. To classify the psychological, physical and sexual violence, the World HealthOrganization instrument on violence against women was used and a questionnaire toinvestigate the sociodemographic, behavioral characteristics, and the women’s family and lifehistory was developed. The statistical analyzes used were Poisson regression, Fisher’s exacttest and Chi-square.RESULTS: The prevalence we observed were psychological 25.3% (95%CI 22.6–28.2); physical9.9% (95%CI 8.1–11.9) and sexual 5.7% (95%CI 4.3–7.3). Psychological violence remainedassociated with education, marital status, maternal history of intimate partner violence, sexualviolence in childhood and drug use, while physical assault was related to age, education, maritalstatus and maternal history of intimate partner violence. Sexual violence occurred the mostamong women with low income, and victims of sexual violence in childhood.CONCLUSIONS: Psychological, physical and sexual violence showed highly frequency amongwomen assisted by primary care services. Sociodemographic and behavioral factors, personalexperiences, and maternal violence influence the phenomenon